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Five days on a tropical island bring out the beachcomber in Steve
Meacham.

We're sitting alone in a rocky little cove watching the sun set
slowly over distant hills, separated from us by a millpond sea. On
the horizon a cruise ship steams gently through the Whitsunday
Passage towards the Great Barrier Reef. Can there be a more idyllic
spot anywhere in Australia?

This must be how Connie Murray felt in July 1931 when she
arrived in the Whitsundays aboard the sailboat Day Dream with her
husband, Paddy, and their best friend, Charlie Hird. It was the
height of the Depression but Connie had a cheerful dream. In fact,
some credit Connie Murray with being the first person to recognise
the tourism potential of the Whitsundays.

The story goes that after a few weeks cruising around the
fabulous archipelago, the Murrays called in to the Lamond family,
who lived in a homestead on South Molle Island. As they were
sitting down to a dinner of roast kid, served by the patriach,
Henry Lamond, a part-time novelist and full-time sheep farmer,
their meal was disturbed by a steam whistle from a coastal steamer.
The SS Karoola had anchored to allow a party of passengers ashore
to tour the island. Henry Lamond disliked such interruptions. But
to Connie Murray, the curious visitors were not intrusions but an
opportunity.

The next day the Murrays offered Lamond 200 pounds for the
picturesque, uninhabited island that lay between South Molle and
the mainland. To Connie, West Molle Island - a two-kilometre-long,
pine-clad hillock poking out of the ocean and fringed with white
sand - was the perfect place for a Hawaiian-type beachcombers'
retreat served by the merchant ships tramping up and down the
Whitsunday Passage.

The Murrays spent the next year building a central homestead,
the focal point for six beachside cabins with beds made of kerosene
cans. In January 1933 the first of the Whitsunday island resorts
was open for business but it had a new name. The prosaic West Molle
had metamorphosed, on Connie's instruction, into Day Dream.

Today it's hard to know what Connie Murray would think of
Daydream (now officially one word). People no longer arrive by
steamer but by plane and high-speed ferry. The wooden cabins and
kerosene-can beds have been replaced by comfortable,
air-conditioned hotel rooms. Visitors rarely swim in the sea
(particularly in stinger season), preferring the luxury pools, some
with cocktail bars. The island even has its own outdoor cinema and
boasts what it says is Australia's finest resort spa
treatments.

Of course, something has also been lost since Connie's day.
Daydream has become mainstream; no longer a beach bum's getaway but
a multimillion-dollar tourist facility, typified most obviously by
the soaring shopping mall-style atrium that is the resort's
hub.

So much has changed about the Whitsundays in recent years.
Daydream is just one of eight resorts dotted around seven islands.
They range from the five-star Hayman Island Resort, still regarded
as one of the finest hotels in the southern hemisphere, to the
backpackers' resort on Hook Island. You can stay in a Pepper's on
Long Island or a Club Med on Lindeman. Or enjoy the kind of
Polynesian floor shows that were all the rage in the 1970s at South
Molle Island Resort, on the site of the original Lamond
homestead.

It hasn't all been plain sailing - there have been bankruptcies
and bruised egos along the way.

Yet the Whitsunday resorts have been attracting new visitors in
the past two years, thanks to budget air fares, which make them no
more expensive than Fiji or Bali. Jetstar flies direct to Hamilton
Island while Virgin Blue goes to Proserpine, with connections via
Shute Harbour to the islands.

So what is a Whitsunday resort holiday like? The answer, of
course, depends on which resort you choose. But certain themes are
common to all. Most obviously there's the natural beauty of the
area. There are more than 100 mostly uninhabited islands in the
heart of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. They form a tropical
playground famed for its aquamarine waters, coral reefs, brilliant
sands, birds, fish and a sense of serenity.

We arrived at Daydream for a five-day cheapie on one of the
regular ferries from Shute Harbour, 10 kilometres outside Airlie
Beach. Even though the journey takes only 15 minutes - Daydream is
the closest island to the mainland - it wasn't hard to imagine how
James Cook felt passing this way on his first voyage of discovery,
on Whit Sunday in 1770.

Daydream is now owned and operated by Vaughan Bullivant, a
former water ski champion turned vitamin supplement entrepreneur,
who has ploughed $70 million into the resort since he bought it in
1999.

First impressions were favourable. Connie and Paddy Murray built
their Day Dream on the flatter, southern end of the island, but
since 1990 the focus of the resort has switched to the rockier,
more picturesque northern end. In the middle is the marina. Here
waiting staff greet disembarking passengers, directing day-trippers
to the shops, watersports and pools on "the southern end" and
overnight guests, like ourselves, to the main resort, which was
reopened after a big redevelopment in 2001.

Our room in the Coral Wing was large, comfortable and tastefully
decorated, with a glorious view from our balcony of the beach,
ocean and passing ferries. There were twin queen-sized beds, cable
TV, ensuite bathroom and mini-bar. It was ideal for anyone without
children (like ourselves, temporarily), though we wondered how the
many young families were coping in the same space.

Soon we were heading out to explore "our" island. It took us 20
minutes, wandering down the flat path that follows the eastern
shore to the southern end (you can catch a golf cart if you
prefer), then up the rocky and surprisingly steep rainforest track
that brought us back to where we started. That left four-and-a-half
days to explore the rest of the Whitsundays.

In recent years, Daydream has been known mainly as a family
resort, with excellent swimming pools, a $300,000 adventure
playground and children's club. Bullivant, though, hopes to broaden
the island's appeal to cashed-up singles and couples, most notably
by building the $3 million Rejuvenation Spa with 14 treatment
rooms.

Most of our fellow holidaymakers seemed to be parents with young
children; on the other hand, the spa seemed full (and so did the
wedding chapel).

Like most of the Whitsunday resorts, Daydream offers a wide
range of watersports, including snorkelling, water polo, kayaking
and catamaran sailing, plus tennis, beach volleyball, mini-golf,
pilates and yoga. But the most popular pastime, apart from lazing
around the pools, seemed to be the afternoon bingo sessions in the
Lagoon cocktail bar.

If Daydream has a failing, it's in the catering, which generally
seems to be RSL standard at CBD prices. A seafood buffet for $48 a
person? A takeaway pizza and salad that takes 90 minutes to get to
us? An understaffed pool bar with a 30-minute queue in so-called
happy hour?

Still, for the price we paid, it was a great package. And if you
do start to feel trapped, you can easily hop aboard a passing ferry
to visit another island or Airlie Beach, now well established as a
resort town in its own right.

We spent a day on Gladiator, a comfortable, twin-engined dive
boat operated by Dive Time (phone 07 4948 1211, http://www.divetime.com.au, $175
for two dives) and saw sharks and stingrays as we explored the
underwater delights of Luncheon Bay and Maureen's Cove on Hook
Island.

We also took the Fantasea cruise to Whitehaven Beach, on the
eastern shore of Whitsunday Island, an uncrowded expanse of fine
silica sand that deserves its reputation as one of Australia's best
beaches. The trip allows you about two hours on Whitehaven but if
you leave Daydream early enough in the day you can enjoy brief
stopovers on both South Molle and Hamilton islands in the
morning.

My wife hadn't been to Hamilton for several years and was amazed
by the improvements. The high-rise hotel and apartments looked less
jarring and the whole resort seemed less brash and artificial. In
effect, Hamilton is a small town with its own school and permanent
residents.

The area around the marina has the feel of Marbella or the
Florida Keys, with a wide range of restaurants, cafes, and shops,
which are run as individual businesses rather than as part of the
resort. Over the hill, which divides the marina and airport from
the rest of the resort, you can find at least four styles of
accommodation: low-cost cabins, high-rise apartments, four-star
hotel and the upmarket Hamilton Island Beach Club overlooking the
main resort beach.

As we headed back to Daydream that evening we were treated to
yet another wonderful Whitsunday skyline, as the sun dropped low
over a canvas of pine-green islands and blue seas. We would have
been tempted to drop anchor and become beachcombers ourselves if
Connie hadn't beaten us by 70-odd years.

It's a dirty job but someone's got to do it. Since my husband
wouldn't know one end of a spa from another, I had to sacrifice two
hours of my holiday working undercover on Travel's behalf,
reviewing one of the top-of-the-range treatments at Daydream's
Rejuvenation Spa.

Actually, I didn't opt for the most expensive. That's the
four-hour Tropical Island Prelude for $410. Mine was the Oceana
Bliss, at $215, which began with a hot tub full of completely black
water thanks to the sports salts I chose. After a relaxing
20-minute soak I moved to the next room for exfoliation, followed
by special Thalgo gel before warm algae was applied. The lid of my
bed was pulled down for 20 minutes while steam was applied.
Meanwhile, I was given a full scalp massage with a moisturising
lotion of honey and oats. Then, after a washdown, I moved to a
third room for a 30-minute massage with a choice of styles - in my
case, sports/deep tissue.

General verdict? The Thalgo products were excellent and each
beauty consultant or therapist was skilled, technical, thorough and
personable. In all, perhaps the best spa treatment I've ever had.
Certainly, my skin felt soft and moisturised for three days
afterwards, despite continual time in sun and chlorine.

Only one complaint. Men and women dressed only in their
bathrobes in the same waiting room (there was a couples' deal on).
It didn't bother me that much but I know several friends who would
be put off immediately - a woman goes to a spa to escape men, not
to meet them!

1113251726127-smh.com.auhttp://www.smh.com.au/news/queensland/what-a-day-for-daydream/2005/04/14/1113251726127.htmlsmh.com.auSydney Morning Herald2005-04-16What a day for DaydreamSteve MeachamFive days on a tropical island bring out the beachcomber in Steve
Meacham.TravelAustraliaADestQueenslandhttp://www.smh.com.au/ffximage/2005/04/18/daydreamisland_wideweb__430x287,0.jpg

The Whitsundays' Daydream Island ... "Can there be a more idyllic
spot anywhere in Australia?" Photo: Tourism Queensland.